Terms and definitions (10)

• DELIVERABLE – A document created during the course of a web design project to facilitate communications, capture decisions, and stimulate innovation.
  
  
• COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS – A web design competitive analysis shows the differences between the site you’re working on and comparable sites. The differences highlighted and the sites compared in the document depend on the purpose of the analysis.
  
  
• CONCEPT MODEL – A concept model is a diagram that shows the relationships between different abstract concepts. You can apply the concept modeling technique in a variety of circumstances to explain different aspects of a web site. Also known as concept maps or affinity diagrams.
  
  
• PERSONAS – A summary representation of the system’s intended users, often described as real people. Any project can have one or more personas, each representing a different kind of audience for the system. Also known as: user profiles, user role definitions, audience profiles.
  
  
• USABILITY REPORTS – The usability report is the outcome of a usability test, whose results are compiled into an actionable format.

Brown, Daniel . Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2007.

Terms and definitions (9)

• GROUPING - The process of placing like content objects together so users can access them effectively, thereby defining content areas. Grouping is performed in conjunction with labeling and is part of the process of organizing.
  
  
• VALIDATION - Quality control for the indexing process. This includes checking for empty attribute values and looking at each attribute value for accuracy and consistency.
  
  
• CONTENT AREA - A collection of content objects that share a common grouping method. A content area is one part of a site. Content areas may be buckets, silos and sub-sites. Example: the “Human Resources” area of a site or the search tool for a site, but not an audio clip or a document.
  
  
• BUILDING BLOCKS – The components of a bottom-up information architecture, namely the attribute and attribute values for content objects.
  
  
• CONTENT - Information that has a tangible aspect because it has been collected and contained in a content object. Content can be unstructured (usually text) or structured (in a database). Content can be collected at differing levels of granularity.

Hagedorn, Kat. The Information Architecture Glossary, http://argus-acia.com/white_papers/iaglossary.html, 2000.

Terms and definitions (8)

• NAVIGATION - The process of users interacting with a site to effectively fulfill their information needs. Users navigate sites by searching and browsing for content objects.
  
  
• HIERARCHAL BROWSING - The process of users following the primary path through a site to access content objects. The primary path is generally called the site hierarchy, but can also be known as a classification, a directory, an ontology or a taxonomy. The site hierarchy reflects the site’s information ecology and an appropriate grouping method.
  
  
• BOTTOM-UP INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE - The process of developing an information architecture based on an understanding of the content and the tools used to leverage that content (e.g., search, indexes). This involves the creation of building blocks, the databases to contain them and the procedures for their maintenance.
  
  
• TOP-DOWN INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE - The process of developing an information architecture based on an understanding of the context of the content and the user needs. This involves determining the scope of the site and the creation of blueprints and mockups detailing the grouping and labeling of content areas.
  
  
• SITE MAP - A content object that graphically represents the levels of the site hierarchy.

Hagedorn, Kat. The Information Architecture Glossary, http://argus-acia.com/white_papers/iaglossary.html, 2000.

Terms and definitions (7)

• APPLET – A self-contained mini-executable program, such as one written in the Java programming language.
  
  
• CODEC – Compression/decompression algorithms applied to media files.
  
  
• W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium. A consortium of many companies and organizations that "exists to develop common standards for the evolution of the World Wide Web."
  
  
• XML – Extensible Markup Language. A new standard for marking up documents and data. XML is based on SGML, but with a reduced feature set that is more appropriate for distribution via the Web. XML allows authors to create customized markup languages.
  
  
• DHTML – Short for "Dynamic HTML," a bit of marketing jargon used to describe the integration of JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets, and the Document Object Model. The term "DHTML" is falling out of favor because of its associations with an era of browser-sniffing and obtrusive scripting. The preferred (and more standards-oriented) term is now "DOM Scripting."

Robbins, Jennifer Niederst . Web Design in a Nutshell. 3rd. Sebastopol, CA : O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2006.

Terms and definitions (6)

• APACHE – A public domain Web server package developed by a group of volunteers. Apache is free with sophisticated features and excellent performance. It is used to host more than 50% of all Web sites in the world.
  
  
• CLIENT SCRIPT – Sometimes called client-side script. Client scripts are usually embedded into an HTML/XHTML document and run by the Web browser to generate special or dynamic features.
  
  
• EVENT HANDLER – A routine inside an application to be triggered by an event such as a mouse click.
  
  
• SERVER SCRIPT – Scripts to be run by a server. Most server scripts are CGI script and used to generate HTML/XHTML documents and return them to a browser. Perl, ASP, and PHP are languages used to write server scripts.
  
  
• EVENT – Any input and/or interaction caused by the user, which could be keystrokes, button clicks, or the position of the mouse pointer.

Lau, Vincent, and P.K. Yuen. Practical Web Technologies. Great Britain : Pearson Education , 2003.

Terms and definitions (5)

• WIREFRAME – depict how an individual page or template should look from an architectural perspective. Wireframes are typically created for the site's most important pages—such as main pages, major category pages, and the interfaces to search—and other important applications. The goal is not to create wireframes for every page in your site, but only for the ones that are complicated, unique, or set a pattern for other pages (i.e., templates).
  
  
• INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE – (a) The structural design of shared information environments. (b) The combination of organization, labeling, search, and navigation systems within web sites and intranets. (c) The art and science of shaping information products and experiences to support usability and findability. (d) An emerging discipline and community of practice focused on bringing principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.
  
  
• ASYNCHRONOUS MESSAGING – Sending messages that are not in sync with an external clock.
  
  
• OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE – Publicly available software that can be copied or modified without payment.
  
  
• SOCIAL NETWORKS – Technology that enables users to leverage personal connections.

Morville, Peter, and Louis Rosenfeld. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. 3rd. Sebastopol, CA : O'Reilly Media, Inc, 2006.

Goto, Kelly, and Emily Cotler. Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works. 2nd. Berkley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2004.

Terms and definitions (4)

• INTERNET - is the vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP suite.
  
  
• JAVASCRIPT - A scripting language developed by Netscape to enable Web authors to design interactive Web pages. JavaScript can be embedded in and interact with HTML/XHTML source code. JavaScript is not Java – they are different.
  
  
• SCRIPTING LANGUAGE - The programming language you can use to write scripts. ECMAScript (for client script), VBScript, ASP, PHP, and Perl are some of the scripting languages on the Web.
  
  
• WEB - A community of Internet servers that support HTML/XHTML formatted documents. The documents or Web pages support a feature that links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files.
  
  
• APACHE - A public domain Web server package developed by a group of volunteers. Apache is free with sophisticated features and excellent performance. It is used to host more than 50% of all Web sites in the world.

Terms and definitions (3)

• UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL) - A text representation of a specific location on the Internet. URLs normally include the protocol (http:// for example), the target location (world wide web or www), the domain or server name (mycompany), and a domain type (com for commercial).
  
  
• ACTIVE SERVER PAGES (ASP) - A special type of scripting language used by Windows NT Server equipped with Internet Information Server (IIS). This specialized scripting language allows the programmer to create very flexible Web server scripts. The use of variables and other features, such as access to server variables, allows a programmer to create scripts that can compensate for user and environmental needs as well as security concerns. ASP pages use HTML to display content to the user.
  
  
• DOMAIN NAME SERVER (DNS) - An Internet technology that allows a user to refer to a host computer by name rather than using its unique IP address.
  
  
• SIMPLE OBJECT ACCESS PROTOCOL (SOAP) - A Microsoft-sponsored protocol that provides the means for exchanging data between COM and foreign component technologies like Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) using XML as an intermediary.
  
  
• EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE PROTOCOL (XMLP) - An online communication protocol alternative to SOAP. XMLP is still in the proposal stage, so there's little information about it. However, XMLP proponents state that it will provide a simplified method for transferring data while extending the capabilities of protocols, such as SOAP.

Definitions from Mueller, John Paul . Special Edition Using SOAP. Que, 2001 book utilizing http://my.safaribooksonline.com/.

Terms and definitions (2)

• MASH-UP - A quickly built composite Web 2.0 application that combines capabilities in a new way to create new value for the user. Mash-ups represent the practical bridge between SOA and Web 2.0.
  
  
• SOCIAL NETWORKS - Technology that enables users to leverage personal connections.
  
  
• PHP - Originally derived from Personal Home Page (PHP) tools, PHP is a recursive acronym that refers to Hypertext Preprocessor, a general-purpose scripting language well suited for Web-based development, allowing for the creation of dynamic content that interacts with databases.
  
  
• WEB 2.0 - Encompasses a range of technologies, tools, techniques, and standards that focus on enabling people to increase the social factor—how people connect with each other to improve how software works. Key principles involve use of lightweight programming models and standards, and techniques such as mash-ups, wikis, tagging, and blogs for richer user interfaces and improved use of data.
  
  
• ATOM - Atom Syndication Format, a standard way for a Web application to check for "feeds" from another Web site. (Example: publish-and-subscribe technique so that you get an alert or feed whenever an event happens that you've asked to be notified about).

Definitions from Carter, Sandy. The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0. IBM Press, 2007. book utilizing http://my.safaribooksonline.com/.

Terms and definitions (1)

• AJAX - AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of Ajax has led to an increase in interactive animation on web pages.
  
  
• DOM - The Document Object Model is a platform- and language-neutral interface that will allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents. The document can be further processed and the results of that processing can be incorporated back into the presented page.
  
  
• RIA - Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have some of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of proprietary web browser plug-ins or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines. Examples of RIA frameworks include Adobe Flash, Java/JavaFX and Microsoft Silverlight.
  
  
• RSS - RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
  
  
• RUBY ON RAILS - Ruby on Rails is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language.
  
  
• FOLKSONOMY - Folksonomy (also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging) is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. Folksonomy describes the bottom-up classification systems that emerge from social tagging.
  
  
• BITTORRENT - BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used to distribute large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and by some estimates it accounts for about 35% of all traffic on the entire Internet.
  
  
• XMLHTTPREQUEST - XMLHttpRequest (XHR) is a DOM API that can be used by JavaScript and other web browser scripting languages to transfer XML and other text data between a web server and a browser. This type of AJAX architecture should not be confused with (XDR) XMLDomainRequest which is a lightweight form of XMLHttpRequest design by Microsoft which doesn't utilize XML-RPC.
  
  
• REST - REST is a term coined by Roy Fielding in his Ph.D. dissertation to describe an architecture style of networked systems. REST is an acronym standing for Representational State Transfer. Representational State Transfer is intended to evoke an image of how a well-designed Web application behaves: a network of web pages (a virtual state-machine), where the user progresses through an application by selecting links (state transitions), resulting in the next page (representing the next state of the application) being transferred to the user and rendered for their use.
  
  
• WIKIS - A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work".
  
  B. Research Method
  
  When searching for web 2.0 terms and technologies, I usually utilize the World Wide Web Consortium website http://www.w3.org/. It has a wealth of information regarding new web technologies. I also use the top web 2.0 search engines and collaborative tools such as Google and Wikipedia. I have numerous books on the topic of Web 2.0 that I received when I attended a couple of Web 2.0 conferences in 2008.